Transcribing YouTube Videos
Generate clean, deduplicated Markdown transcripts from YouTube videos using yt-dlp.
Prerequisites
Verify CLI dependencies before running:
command -v yt-dlp jq awk sed find
Required: yt-dlp, jq, awk, sed, find (standard POSIX utilities).
Workflow
Step 1: Get the video identifier
Accept any of these input formats:
- Full URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6pbQ5li5Cg - Short URL:
https://youtu.be/q6pbQ5li5Cg - Shorts URL:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/q6pbQ5li5Cg - Bare video ID:
q6pbQ5li5Cg
Step 2: Run the script
bash {baseDir}/scripts/genInfoNugget.sh <URL_or_VIDEO_ID>
To reprocess an existing SRT without re-downloading:
bash {baseDir}/scripts/genInfoNugget.sh --fix <URL_or_VIDEO_ID>
Step 3: Verify output
The script produces two files in the current directory:
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
*.InfoNug.DDMMMYY.HHMMSS.md | Timestamped transcript with #### chapter headings |
*.InfoNug.DDMMMYY.HHMMSS.md_chapters.md | Prose-only version grouped by chapter (no timestamps) |
After the script completes, read the first ~30 lines of the prose file (_chapters.md) to confirm no triplication. Each phrase should appear exactly once.
Step 4: Present results
Report the two output filenames to the user. If the user wants a summary, read the prose file and summarize by chapter.
How the script works
- Download: Tries manual subs first (
--write-subs), falls back to auto-generated (--write-auto-subs) only if needed - Deduplicate: AWK pass removes ≤100ms transition blocks and strips rolling duplicate lines carried forward from previous blocks
- Chapters: Extracts chapter timestamps from
info.jsonviajq, inserts####headings in a single AWK pass - Prose: Strips all timestamps and joins text into flowing paragraphs grouped by chapter
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| "No SRT file found" | No subtitles in target language | Check video has captions enabled |
| Tripled text in output | Using old v1 script | Use this skill's script which includes deduplication |
--fix fails with no SRT | Previous run cleaned up intermediate files | Run without --fix to re-download |
Why does tripling happen? See references/faqs.md for a detailed explanation of YouTube's rolling VTT format and how the dedup works.